Will Volley’s new graphic novel The Opportunity is a comic-book version of Glengarry Glen Ross relocated to Hastings. It’s a fine example of Brit noir illuminated by Volley’s sharp, clean and expressive artwork. No surprise then that it’s already been praised by cartoonist David (V For Vendetta) Lloyd and author Jake (The Long Firm) Arnott.

Volley, who is now working on storyboarding and an original graphic novel about an ex-football player who turns to a life of crime, took some time out to answer some questions about The Opportunity, his time as a door-to-door salesman and his love of David Mazzucchelli’s Daredevil.


What were the origins of The Opportunity?
The story was inspired by a brief experience I had working as a door-to-door salesman for a multi-level marketing company soon after I graduated from university in the early 2000s. After I left, I became very curious about the business, because I had so many unanswered questions. I began researching, and the more I learned, the more fascinated I became about the company. I'd always wanted to write a contemporary drama, and I decided that the subject matter – this underground sales world – was perfect material. I took a year off work and began writing what became The Opportunity.
Were you good at door-to-door selling yourself? What’s your strongest memory of the job?
I was hopeless at sales (and still am!) because I always knew in the back of mind that I had other ways to make money, using my artistic talents, so I didn't have the ‘eye of the tiger’ that's required to progress. But the top sales people in the office were real characters: witty, smart, confident, tough beyond belief, and I had nothing but respect and admiration for them. 

The thing that I remember most from my experience at this sales company was the contrast in my feelings about the business; from initially being incredibly excited by this positive, vibrant, friendly, ambitious atmosphere, to then gradually being exposed to a much darker side of the business as the weeks went by – the mind-numbing repetition, the pent-up frustration, the cult-like obedience, the desperation, the deliberate detachment from friends and family. I remember a few months after I left, I saw one of the top sellers drifting aimlessly through town – she looked dishevelled and broke. A lot of sales people get burned out in this business; this is because they're overworked, but they can't bring themselves to quit, because to quit would be an admission that all the years they had put into the business had been in vain. So they carry on until they get ill (mentally or physically). It's shocking, but a reality unfortunately.

What kind of mentality do you need to be able to do that job?
In order to make it all the way to the top, to a management position (which is the goal for every sales person in this company) you have to be incredibly driven, hard-working and amoral! To keep your office growing, you have to string people along, fill them with false hopes and lie to them about how easy it all is. One of the ex-managers I interviewed during my research told me they were ‘like vampires’. He eventually left because he felt like he wasn't able to be himself, and he didn't like who he had to become in order to get ahead.

When it came to making comics what was your own opportunity?
After I graduated from university I immediately started working as a storyboard artist in London. But I really wanted to draw comics, so in my spare time I wrote and drew a short action story which I would showcase to comic book editors at conventions in order to get work. And it paid off. I got a handful of jobs drawing for Image comics, and off the back of that was then commissioned to illustrate two graphic novels for UK publisher Classical Comics. [Will did linework for Romeo and Juliet and An Inspector Calls.]

How did you get interested in comics in the first place and how did that interest develop?
I always loved drawing from a young age, and I was lucky that I had a lot of encouragement from my parents who were both artists. I would visit my dad every other weekend and he would encourage me to draw from life; the dogs, getting people to sit and pose etc., but after a while I got bored with just recording what I was seeing in front of me and started experimenting, to see if I could invent people, draw things purely from my imagination (much to his horror), create a new reality. That’s basically what comic book artists do. 

In my final year at primary school our teacher brought in a box full of Daredevil comics which exposed me to David Mazzucchelli's work which I instantly fell in love with. The work he did with Frank Miller really shaped my understanding and approach to comics. 

But my interest in the medium wasn't sparked solely by comic books. As a teenager I would often come home from school and draw the events of the day, perhaps a fight, or a football sequence, and I think it was my way of processing things. So making visual stories is a very natural, primitive activity for me. They're my cave paintings! 

What makes the comic book form special?
For me, the appeal with reading comic books is that I like looking at line drawings. Nothing gives me more pleasure than gazing at a well drawn/constructed comic-book page. Drawings can both convey and evoke strong emotions, more so than photographs, I find, so add to that the fact that the drawings interact with words to tell a story, and you have a unique art form, a visual poetry.


The Opportunity by Will Volley is published by Myriad Editions on March 31, priced £12.99.